GEMINI MAN. Interesting concept, but flawed execution. I think the trailer is why it bombed. Because they should have either upped the budget for better CGI, or waited for advances in technology. The CGI is just plain bad to mediocre.

To see CGI done right, go watch the very end of Fast 7. When Brian's car pulls up next to Dom's, Paul Walker is completely CGI and does not look it at all.

I'd heard that this was good and I've long admired Nicol Williamson, so thought I'd give it a whirl. And it's OK. Nicol Williamson is very good as Holmes, though I wasn't blown away by the story. Robert Duvall's accent is a bit distracting -- not bad per se, but odd. Maybe because Duvall's real pattern of talking is so familiar that it comes across as fake. Alan Arkin's accent isn't perfect but somehow works despite it.

The film revels in its period details and it is all quite lavish, but I found the plot so underwhelming that it sort of doesn't feel like it was worth all the effort.

I really liked the preceding films in this series - FIRST CLASS and DAYS OF FUTURE PAST. I can accept wildly off model X-Men because ALL of it has seemed off model since JB left! And I include the books in that comment, starting with Cockrum's second run after JB departed. So I see everything as a riff on the characters and stories.

But I heard negative things from trusted sources on both films, so I hadn't seen APOCALYPSE by the time DARK PHOENIX showed up on HBO this past Saturday. I made a double feature of it.

I didn't read the original APOCALYPSE story, so I can accept the story, although the film is overlong and not plotted nor edited with much clarity. McAvoy and Fassbender are very good, as always.

DARK PHOENIX gets so much wrong with the main foundation of what made the original so impactful that I couldn't get into it. A few good scenes, and the action scenes had better definition to them, which was a step up from tech previous movie.

Tonight turned into a George C. Scott double feature, as I drifted from the sublime to—well, not the ridiculous, maybe. Too earnest for that. A Hollywood disaster movie in the tradition of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE and THE TOWERING INFERNO.

Odd Thomas (2013) on Prime (Canada), starring Anton Yelchin as Odd Thomas, Addison Timlin as Stormy Llewellyn and Willem Dafoe as Chief Wyatt Porter. It is based on a book by Dean R. Koontz. The acting made the movie and the first person narration by Odd Thomas strengthens the connection to the character and his plight. Goods mystery elements.